North Penn’s Carangi staying busy with summer hoops

July is seemingly a month dominated by baseball at all levels.

But it’s an equally important month for basketball, especially for high school players. Sam Carangi, a rising senior guard at North Penn has been staying busy both with her AAU team, the Comets, and North Penn in the latter’s summer league games.

Carangi and her 2017 Comets teammates just came off a very successful Midwest trip, going 8-0 to win a USJN tournament in Cincinnati then going 4-1 to finish second in their pool at the Nike Tournament of Champions in Chicago that ran July 10-12.

“Our team is really unique in that we all play together as one,” Carangi said. “We all buy into the system and we all work really well together.”

Most of her AAU teammates are also rising seniors but there are a couple of underclassmen. Carangi’s Comets teammates include Abington post Lizzie O’Leary, Cardinal O’Hara guards Hannah Nihill, Kenzie Gardler and Mary Sheehan, Cumberland Valley guard Katie Jekot and Episcopal Academy forward Elodie Furey, along with other top players from the southeast, middle and Lehigh Valley areas.

The summer between junior and senior years is often the most important for players who are looking to play collegiately but Carangi, along with many of her AAU teammates, has already committed, continuing a family legacy at Villanova.

So instead of trying to catch the eye of coaches, Carangi has been able to do two main things this summer. Firstly is enjoy this last batch of tournaments and travel with some of her best friends the last time they’ll be a team and secondly competing against high-level competition and the kind of players she’ll see at the college level.

“It’s about enjoying your last year and having fun with your friends,” Carangi said. “But you’re still competing and we want to win at this level. In Chicago for us, it was about seeing all the sights, our games were at 12 and 3 so we had all night to do stuff and it was a lot of fun as a team.”

The Comets have one more tournament in Washington D.C. together as a team. Gardler, a rising junior, is also on her way to Villanova while Sheehan and Jekot, rising seniors, are heading to St. Joe’s and Nihill, also a rising senior, is pledged to Drexel and to-be senior O’Leary has committed to Delaware.

Carangi said while they’ll all be on different teams this time next year, and in some cases major rivals, they’ll all be close enough that they can easily spend time together. Still, they’re taking care to make this summer a memorable one.

“In the beginning of the season it was a big joke because Hannah Nihill, our point guard, is really upset about it,” Carangi said. “But we’ve been making video diaries throughout the season, like after our games and out in Chicago and Cincinnati and everywhere else we’ve been. We have our end of the year party at one of the girl’s houses, so we’re going to put a slideshow together.”

A Comets tradition on the road is to have meals together at diners and in Chicago, there’s a certain spot they always go to.

“It’s my favorite place,” Carangi said of the Second City. “There’s this one diner right near our hotel, the Eleven City Diner and it’s the best thing in the whole world. They’re known for their French toast so I’d get that. After games we always try to find diners to go to.”

Carangi, who played as a lead guard for North Penn last year with the ball in her hands a lot, said she’s been working on getting better with her left hand and driving to the basket. As a deadeye outside shooter, she noticed teams were crowding her outside the arc and keying on her right hand by the end of the season so she wanted to diversify her skillset.

The competition on the road helped. She noted one team where the smallest guard was the same height as the Comets’ tallest post player and another team from the Midwest with so much size she and her teammates were joking asking what’s in the food out there after the game.

Her health has also been a big factor this summer. Last year, the guard was coming off a broken hand that hindered her high school season then broke an ankle in the same D.C. tournament she’s heading to next.

“I just have to stay focused and not worry about anything,” Carangi said. “It was a freak thing with my hand and in D.C., I went up to get the ball and it was just the way I fell.”

Carangi said she was shooting the ball well in both tournaments, breaking a little slump she had been in. She credited her teammates for finding her when she was heating up, a product of the Comets’ system which maximizes ball movement, passing and giving up a good shot for a great shot.

“It’s a lot of fun and a lot of people, even the teams we play against, will come up to us and say that we’re so much fun to watch,” Carangi said. “Even though they’re the opposing team, it’s nice to have them come up and say that to you.”

With North Penn, Carangi is part of a team bringing back almost all of its key pieces from a state semifinalist plus adding some young and new depth. While the graduation of Mikaela Giuliani (USciences) hurts in the front court, Carangi said the younger girls have done well in their games at Gwynedd Mercy Academy’s summer league.

Injuries hit a lot of North Penn’s bench depth by the end of the season and Carangi said she and the other starters who played a lot of minutes felt a little worn down by season’s end. With some spry new faces already learning the ropes, the Knights will have more to work with.

That also means Carangi will have to be a leader, something she’s ready for.

“I’m trying to be more positive and not get down or negative if something goes wrong,” Carangi said. “I think positivity will help the whole aura of the team, we’ll stay a little more upbeat.”

North Penn coach Maggie deMarteleire, who won her 500th game last season, was just elected into the Montgomery County Coaches Hall of Fame. Carangi said it was special to be part of that game and said deMarteleire has done a lot to help her improve over the last three seasons.

“She’s helped me realize I always have to work on my game,” Carangi said. “She makes us work harder and in college, it’s going to be the same way. Our coaches are going to be expecting that.”